April 30, 2016

When Craig
Ferguson is released from prison after a year’s sentence for fighting, he
returns home to his father and brother, and the family business. Throwing himself
back into the life he left, with family, work, and women, Craig tries to forget
his time on the inside, but there’s one thing he just can’t get out of his
mind.

Cell mate,
Rocky Kirk, still has six months of his sentence to go, and after a year together
in a tiny cell, Craig misses him more than he cares to admit. He does his best
to forget, but when Rocky is released, and arrives on Craig’s doorstep,
homeless and hurt, everything that happened between them comes flooding back.

Craig’s
family takes in Rocky, now known as Kirk, and gives him a home and a job, but
he’s reluctant to join in with their partying, and never seems entirely
comfortable in their home. A few months later Kirk announces he has to leave,
and when Craig presses him for an explanation, Kirk blurts out that his
unwanted feelings for his friend are hurting him too much to stay. His
admission changes everything, but Craig’s uncertainty, and fears of his father
discovering their secret, threatens to ruin anything that could develop between
them.

Pages or Words: 34,000
words

Categories: Contemporary,
Gay Fiction, M/M Romance

Excerpt:

I
turned away from him, barged past Dad, and took the stairs two at a time. The
bathroom door shook in its frame when I kicked it shut behind me. My temper
rapidly subsided, and I risked a peek at myself in the mirror above the sink.
The color in my face faded, leaving me pale and wild-eyed, breathing hard. What
the hell just happened?

I
replayed the scene in my head, starting with the almost-kiss between Stuart and
Catherine. Was there something between them? Was it really nothing? Was I
pissed off because she was supposed to be dating me, or was I actually hurt? I
didn't feel hurt. It didn't seem that important anymore. She probably wouldn't
want to see me again after my outburst and I wasn't convinced I minded all that
much. What the fuck did that say about us? The more I thought about it, the
more I realized I was only angry with myself, mostly because when I’d finally
got what I wanted, I didn’t want it that much anymore.

Kirk
slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah,
just fucking brilliant."

"I'm
sorry."

"You
didn't do anything."

"You
know what I mean. Do you think there's anything going on with her and
Stuart?"

"How
the fuck should I know? It looked like it, didn't it?" I shrugged and blew
my breath out hard. "I don't fucking care anyway."

"I
thought you liked her."

"Yeah,
well. Maybe I should have stuck with the one-nighters."

"You
don't mean that. I thought you wanted a relationship."

"I
don't wanna talk about it." I didn’t want to think about it anymore
either. My hand stung like a bastard, and I noticed for the first time that
blood was dripping all over the tiles under my feet. Before I could move, Kirk
grabbed a folded towel, placed it on my knee and laid my hand on it, palm down.

"There's
a lot of glass in there."

"You
reckon you can get it out?"

"I'll
try." He found tweezers and tissues in the bathroom cabinet, and dropped
to his knees at my feet. Some of the droplets of blood soaked into his jeans
and I grimaced.

"You're
getting blood on you."

"It'll
wash." He dabbed carefully at the back of my hand, and the tissues turned
red. "This looks bad. You might need stitches."

"I'll
be all right." I clenched my teeth as he plucked out the first glass
splinter and looked around for somewhere to put it. I reached for Dad's can of
shaving foam and flipped off the lid. "Put them in there."

Kirk
dropped each tiny piece of glass into the lid, and I counted eighteen pieces
before Dad spoke from outside the door.

"Do
you need to go to the hospital?"

"No.
Thanks. Kirk's fixing it."

"Right.
Good." His feet thudded on the stairs as he returned to the football
match.

"I'm
missing the match."

Kirk
looked up at me and grinned, his brown eyes twinkling. "You'd rather bleed
to death than miss the football?"

"Yeah,
probably."

"I
think I got it all."

"What?"

"The
glass. I think I got it all out." I dropped my gaze as he dabbed at the
myriad tiny wounds with the wad of tissue. "Does it feel like there's anything
still in there?"

"No."

"I
think I saw some bandages in the cabinet." Kirk got up and rifled through
the cupboard. I stayed where I was until he kneeled down again and placed a
dressing on the back of my hand. "Hold that there a minute."

"Were
you a paramedic in a previous life?"

"I
did a first aid course a few years ago. I can remember most of it." He
wrapped a bandage around my hand, binding the dressing in place and making a
surprisingly neat job of it. When it was done he stayed where he was, and I
realized he was holding my bandaged hand in both of his and stroking my palm
with one thumb. A few strands of hair had escaped the knot on the back of his
head, and I had a sudden urge to tuck them behind his ear. I held my breath,
staring at the top of his bent head. The only sound in the room was his
breathing, and the intermittent drip from the bath tap that had needed fixing
for a while.

"Thanks."
The word came out croaky, my mouth so dry I could barely speak at all.

"No
problem." Kirk jerked away, dropping my hand as if it had burnt him.
Snatching up the wad of tissues, he tossed them into the toilet, and used the
bloody towel to mop the floor. I stayed where I was until he opened the door
and left me alone. His bedroom door opened and closed, and I made my way
downstairs. I felt less concerned about my likely imminent break-up with
Catherine, than I was about the moment
in the bathroom.

What
the hell happened? Maybe nothing. Maybe something. Did he still think about
what happened between us and try not to? Jerk off and try not to remember me
fucking him? Did he feel anything when he held my hand and stroked my palm,
then jumped away? Jesus Christ. My heart hammered, and this time when I told
myself it didn’t mean anything, and that I just kept remembering the person I’d
been close to on the inside, it didn’t work.

Louise Lyons comes from
a family of writers. Her mother has a number of poems published in poetry
anthologies, her aunt wrote poems for the church, and her grandmother sparked
her inspiration with tales of fantasy. Louise first ventured into writing short
stories at the grand old age of eight, mostly about little girls and ponies.
She branched into romance in her teens, and MM romance a few years later, but
none of her work saw the light of day until she discovered FanFiction in her
late twenties.

Posting stories based on some of her favorite
movies, provoked a surprisingly positive response from readers. This gave
Louise the confidence to submit some of her work to publishers, and made her
take her writing “hobby” more seriously.

Louise lives in the UK, about an hour north of
London, with a collection of tropical fish and tarantulas. She works in the
insurance industry by day, and spends every spare minute writing. She is a keen
horse-rider, and loves to run long-distance. Some of her best writing inspiration
comes to her, when her feet are pounding the open road. She often races into
the house afterward, and grabs pen and paper to make notes.

Louise has always been a bit of a tomboy, and
one of her other great loves is cars and motorcycles. Her car and bike are her
pride and joy, and she loves to exhibit the car at shows, and take off for long
days out on the bike, with no one for company but herself.

April 01, 2016

The Sarrans
return home from Earth in triumph, having gained many new Earthen fems, coffee,
chocolate, and cats.

Senator Samuel
Johnson joins his grandson Michael, his daughter Sara, and her WarriorPair on
Sarran. To his delighted surprise, he bonds irrevocably with Tarin, one of
Sarran's top engineers. Tarin had been bonded before and thought he would never
experience a bond again, yet Sam's love gives him a new lease on life. Now they
only hope the Goddess has a fem for them.

Then the Sarran
Elders host a mixer for Sarran warriors to meet the Earthen fems. Margaret Mary
O'Neil, Meg to her friends, is a talented woman who fled to Sarran like so many
Earth women looking for a new life. When she meets Sam and Tarin, her life
changes forever.

But while things
are looking up for the Sarrans, with new babies being born and WarriorPairs
settling down, their enemy the Zyptz are relentless in their efforts to wipe
them out. When the Zyptz attack both Sarran and Earth, the mutual dependence
between the two becomes ever more evident.

::We will need to
get our promise rings and Asta glasses, but we can decide where to live and get
our rings and glasses later. Right now I want you under me.:: Tarin pushed Sam’s shoulders
down into the softness of the couch pillows. Sam turned on his side so they
faced each other.

::I foolishly didn’t bother to ask, although I should have consulted Mark,
but now that I’ve taken the vial, does my equipment work the same way?::

::Yes and no. Externally you will see the slick that pours from under your
foreskin. This enables one of us to penetrate the other and our fem without
pain when we bond. Internally, there will be a type of a tube, a Secondary
Sperm Valve that connects your channel to the seminal vesicle in your partner.
When a Sarran Warrior receives sperm from his bonded, it opens the valve. The
sperm goes through the valve to connect to the seminal vesicle where they mix
with the sperm of your bonded. It is only when they mix that we can impregnate
our fem. Our offspring are born with half of our fem’s DNA and one-quarter of
each of ours. After we form the bond with our fem, we may make penetrative love
with her or without her, as the Triad chooses.::

::I feel foolish asking for such basic information. I had the whole voyage
to research this aspect of Sarran physiology. I was concentrating on helping
Michael adjust to Sara’s Warriors.::

::You did the right thing, my fox. From the holos you showed me, Michael had
reason to be wary.::

::Now I feel like a pre-pubescent offspring in health class, not knowing how
my body is supposed to function.:: Sam blushed. ::How do I
please you?::

::All the ways you’d please yourself without penetration. Let me show you.:: Tarin
sat up, got off the couch, and knelt in front of Sam, removing the boots Mark
and Juraens had fabricated for him on board the Brightstar. Tarin kissed the
inside of Sam’s knee. Sam moaned. He never knew he had a hot spot there.

Tarin removed his
own boots and then attacked Sam’s flightsuit. The one-piece garment came off
quickly, giving Tarin access to Sam’s body.

Sam looked at his
lover in appreciation. “You have a beautiful, hard form. I love your wavy
blonde hair and blue eyes. You are everything I ever looked for in a man. If I
had met you before Mary, I doubt I would have joined the army. I’d have become
a college professor and lived in a house very much like this with you always at
my side.”

Sam ran his palm
down Tarin’s side from his shoulder to the curve of his ass. “Beautiful ... I
can’t believe how lucky I am and it seems even our dreams are in alignment.”

Tarin
blushed. ::I keep in shape because any Sarran Warrior can be called to
battle at any time. You were in governance, how did you train? You have a hard
and well-made body, my fox.::

::In the Senate Gym. I exercised and had a trainer. If I were going to be
the President, I had to be in the best shape I’d ever been in my life. The job
is debilitating. Although the United States is only one country on Earth, the
President of the United States carries the weight of the world on his shoulders
because we act as the planet’s police and are the only major power left on
Earth. Russia and China have the land mass and China has population, but the United
States still has the upper hand in weaponry. We, like the Sarrans, also have
fierce Warriors.::

::Being on council is much the same as you describe the presidency. The
Elders aged quickly during the war and later when the Zyptz took our fems, the
Elders bore the brunt of finding a solution. Our population is dangerously low,
a mere twenty-thousand WarriorPairs. If you add the unbonded Warriors and
offspring, it is another ten thousand. We need all of these bebes our fems are
carrying and we must keep them safe.::

::You have too much open land to police properly. What you need is a type of
radar that lets the government know immediately if the atmosphere has been
breached, or better still, something that shields the planet from all but our
own vessels.::

“I’ve been working on that project with Bron. It’s almost ready.”

Sam was about to
speak and Tarin put a finger on his lips. ::My fox, I want to know everything
about you. We could talk until dawntine but right now, I want to love you.
We’re naked and wanting. Can we make love?::

AC Katt was born in New York City’s Greenwich Village. She
remembers sitting at the fountain in Washington Square Park listening to folk
music while they passed the hat.At nine, her parents dragged her to New
Jersey where she grew up, married and raised four children and became a
voracious reader of romantic fiction. At one time she owned over two thousand
novels, until she and her husband took themselves and the cat to New Mexico for
their health and its great beauty.

Now, most of AC’s books are electronic (although she still keeps
six bookcases of hardcovers), so she never has to give away another book. AC is
a late bloomer, however, she claims to have found her niche writing LGBT
romance.

She hangs out at ACKatt.com and ackattsjournal.com; where she
keeps her blog.To get snippets of new
releases and Works in Progress subscribe to AC Katt’s Kattery by sending an
e-mail to mlhansel@gmail.com.